Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 13th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

You can just submit it.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I move amendment 12796449.

Is that adequate for technical purposes? Thank you. That saves me about five minutes of reading.

I would like to address some of the elements of this amendment, and there are a couple of other things that I would like to read into the record.

This amendment addresses many of the concerns that we've heard. It uses language from the three self-government agreements back in February 2023 for the three Métis nations.

I want to take a moment and read from the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan agreement, chapter 5, paragraphs 5.02(c), 5.02(d) and 5.02(e) on page 14. It's from the “Recognition” chapter, which is exactly the section of this piece of legislation that we're talking about—the section on recognition. I get that I'm picking out a piece. I can read the whole thing if somebody wants me to. It's talking about some of the definitions here:

(c) the Métis Government is the democratic representative government of the Métis Nation within Saskatchewan and has the responsibility for providing responsible and accountable self-government for its Citizens and Métis collectivity throughout Saskatchewan;

(d) the Métis Government is the Indigenous Governing Body of the Métis Nation within Saskatchewan;

(e) the Métis Government is exclusively mandated to represent the Métis Nation within Saskatchewan based on the authorizations it receives from its Citizens and the Métis collectivity throughout Saskatchewan comprised of those Citizens, in respect of collectively held Métis Rights, interests, and claims, and in particular to:

i. implement and exercise the Métis Nation within Saskatchewan's inherent rights to self-determination, including the right of self-government

There are a number of other subparagraphs to the paragraph, or however you would technically frame that.

My purpose in presenting this amendment in this manner is this.

I'm going to be really frank with you. Since Saturday afternoon, I've lived and breathed this, trying to find the balance. I did that with two people on my side and some work with Ms. Idlout's team. We don't have tons of people to do this work. We went back and forth with the legislative clerk, who was fabulous, quite frankly. I think this is the fifth amendment that she's put together for me as we've tried to work through this. This is the one that we chose to use. She has been fabulous in working with us and giving us advice. We said, “Here's what we're trying to accomplish”, and she was tremendous at providing us with the legal advice to put these words together. In all fairness, she's the one who came up with a bunch of the language in this. I want to give credit where credit is due.

I believe this amendment creates very clear, unambiguous language, and it leaves no doubt whatsoever as to who is included or not included in this legislation. We heard from so many people the concern about the clarity of who is and who isn't included in this whole relationship that we're creating with this very important legislation. We heard it over and over again.

My intent is to create clear, unambiguous language so that we're not dealing with this somewhere down the road in a way that's causing issues for anybody. I tried to make it a compromise. I tried to make it a fair balance of the concerns that we heard from so many sources.

The language in the amendment also goes on to define “citizens” in each of the three Métis nations, and those definitions are literally from each of the independent agreements of the Métis nations from February 2023. I think that some of them were from February 24, 2023, and some of them were from February 23, 2023. The language is coming right out of those agreements.

The last thing that I would like to add to the conversation is that, out of respect for the conversations I had yesterday with some of the stakeholders, I wanted to ensure that we actually left “Indigenous governing body” in here because it is important in the context of how that applies to Bill C-92. I didn't want to come to a place where I took that out.

Specifically, I was talking to some of the folks from the Métis Nation of Saskatchewan. They assured me that they were talking to the people from the other provinces. I wanted to leave that in there out of respect, because this is what triggered some of the concerns in the first place. Out of respect for the fact that this is critical in the context of child and family services under Bill C-92 and ensuring they have a place there, I wanted to put it back in. As was explained to me, the assurance of putting it in there was to ensure they are included in that definition.

When you look at the end of the amendment, not only does it take the standard definition of “Indigenous governing body” that we talked about the other day in so many different places, but it adds and for greater certainty includes “a Métis government”. Nobody is left to doubt whether a Métis government is included in this definition of “Indigenous governing body”, especially as it would come back and refer to the approach on Bill C-92.

My intent, in fairness, was to find a balance, to find a compromise. My intent was to try to get it right. I look forward to the comments of the officials at the table, who would have some opinion on this, and to my colleagues' comments. Let's see where this goes. I'm happy to hear the comments of others.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Battiste, it's over to you.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I do appreciate the comments of Mr. Vidal. I do appreciate all the collaboration, the discussion and the hard work in trying to find the right balance on this. Being part of government, we do our best to work with the stakeholders. I know that the discussions have been ongoing through this committee meeting.

I think that if you seek it, Mr. Chair, you will see unanimous consent to suspend, to have those conversations with the stakeholders and to pick up tomorrow where we left off.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Thank you.

Having seen this, and having had some conversations, I believe there is consent of the committee to suspend until tomorrow. I just want to check, though, before we go. There are a number of committees that are cancelled tomorrow, so there are resources available. We can ask for resources, but without the will of the committee, it doesn't do us any good to do that. The question is, are we good to resume...? I know that time is needed to have the discussions with stakeholders and perhaps between parties. I really do appreciate the efforts that are being made.

Do you want me to request additional resources for tomorrow or stay with the 3:30 to 5:30 time slot that we have?

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

If I may comment, I feel that we have a taken a turn here on the path that I think we can get past clause 8. I think that with the developments that are coming through, we'll be able to get through many more clauses tomorrow.

I do know that for me personally, it's tight before. I'm fine after, however, but I drive. There are a number of my colleagues here who have flights booked already. That might be problematic, but to the government, I think we can get through enough to ensure the government is happy and our stakeholders are happy. We might not get through the whole thing.

With the existing frame, I think we've come to some kind of agreement, one way or the other, on clause 8.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

All right. Okay. I'm getting nods to that.

With the agreement of the committee, we will suspend, and then we'll resume tomorrow at 3:30 for our regular two-hour slot from 3:30 to 5:30. We'll see how far we get.

I have been told that we will be in room 415 tomorrow, back to our regular room. Today, we did go to a different room. I had been informed that there were members of the Métis nations coming to see us today, so we tried to get as big a room as possible, but tomorrow, unless I'm told otherwise, we will be back in our normal room at the other side of this building.

With that, colleagues, thank you so much.

We're now suspended.

[The meeting was suspended at 5:56 p.m., Wednesday, December 13]

[The meeting resumed at 3:42 p.m., Thursday, December 14]

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome back to the continuation of meeting number 92. We're working on the clause-by-clause study of Bill C-53, an act respecting the recognition of certain Métis governments in Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Before we get into the meeting today with some of the procedural things we need to do, in the spirit of the season and with the goodwill we saw the other day, I have a little box of Merci chocolates that I'll pass around the table. Officials are welcome to join in. Staff, please make sure that they get to you.

For those who have joined us at the back, we'll make sure that you get some chocolates as well to celebrate the progress we have been making on this bill and that we will hopefully continue to make today.

It's a little token of gratitude from—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

On a point of order, Mr. Schmale—oh man, here we go. Bring them back right now.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

On the point of order, I don't see the translated chocolates here. It's only in one official language.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

We'll send some to the interpreters to see if they can help us. Feel free to take them and pass them around.

(On clause 8)

Colleagues, we are resuming debate on clause 8.

We were at CPC-3.3, which was moved by Mr. Vidal.

I understand that there's been some progress in the discussion since we suspended yesterday.

Mr. Vidal, I'll turn the floor over to you. I think you have a couple of things to put forward to us.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

It has been a little bit of a blur today. I'm still trying to get through this. There was a lot of discussion about the amendment that I proposed yesterday.

As anybody who was here yesterday observed, there was a lot of conversation going on in the room and in some of the times that we were suspended. Even though it was a good attempt at a compromise to address all of the concerns, there were still a couple of concerns raised.

I had a number of meetings this morning, and I think we have a better option that I'd like to propose. From a process perspective, with the agreement of everybody at the table—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Yes, you need unanimous consent.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

—I would like to seek unanimous consent to pull my motion from yesterday, which was identified as CPC-3.2.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

It's CPC-3.3.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Yes, it's CPC–3.3.

Then I'm going to propose another amendment, which has now been numbered as CPC—

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

It might be better to use the reference number.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Okay. Reference number 12808783 is my goal.

We need unanimous consent before I can do that, if I understand the process, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Yes. I will call first for unanimous consent for Mr. Vidal to withdraw his amendment, CPC–3.3.

Do we have consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Okay, we do. That is withdrawn.

Now the floor is yours, if you'd like to continue.

[Gary Vidal, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

I would. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I was saying previously, in the discussions today, one of the concerns we were trying to address with the amendment we proposed yesterday was this idea of how to address the term “Indigenous governing body” and the terms “collectivities” or “collectivity”, which appear in the bill nine times. How do we define that? How do we understand who that is? There was some concern, combined with some confusion and some lack of ability to explain and define what that term actually means.

In the context of the conversations today, this amendment is actually a relatively simple amendment to the original clause 8. Line 16 on page 4 becomes.... It was funny. Yesterday people asked what I meant by “-half of the Métis collectivity”. You have to read in the context of how it flows within the actual clause.

It would read, “on behalf of the Métis collectivity, including its citizens, set out in column 2 opposite”, and it would go on from there.

As we had it yesterday, we also include a definition of “Indigenous governing body” because that was a fairly important element for the Métis nations in the context of how it applies to Bill C-92 and their ability to provide the services under Bill C-92 for the kids in their jurisdictions. As well, on the end of that definition, relative to the one that started this whole conversation way back, I believe, on Monday morning, it adds “and, for greater certainty, includes a Métis government”, so there is an absolute assurance that an indigenous governing body includes a Métis government.

The point I would like to make in the context of the amendment to clause 8 on line 4—I guess it would probably roll over to line 5—is that the collectivity, including its citizens.... The thing that's really important to recognize—and this was something that was very important to the Métis nations—was this idea that a collectivity can be greater than just the sum of its citizens. There is an ability to recognize that and—I hope I'm not going to use the wrong word here—that they are able to advocate for people who could be part of their collectivity but may not have chosen to be part of their citizenship when it comes to things like hunting rights and some of those kinds of things.

I think I am satisfied that this explanation is reasonable and I'm satisfied that this is a good compromise that I think everybody at the table can get behind.

It's been an interesting week of getting here.

I'll leave my comments there. I'd love to hear the comments of our colleagues. I'd love to hear the comments of the officials, to make sure that we haven't overlooked something in this latest iteration of the inclusion of the definitions. Before we rush in to vote, I'd really like to hear the opinion of the officials and colleagues at the table who have been here through this process to make sure that I'm not the only guy who thinks we got here.

[The Chair, Liberal, John Aldag]

Mr. Vidal, do you want to invite the officials who are here to answer the question?

I'm building a list, if anybody else wants to be on it.